"Yes, you care--just now"--she answered, with a sigh; "and it's very kind of you. I wish I could care--in the way you want me to--but--" "Will you try?" he pleaded. "I do try--really I do try hard," she said, with quite a piteous earnestness,--"but I can't feel what isn't HERE,"--and she pressed both hands on her breast--"I care more for Roger the horse, and Cupid the dove, than I do for you! It's quite awful of me--but there it is! I love--I simply adore"--and she threw out her arms with an embracing gesture--"all the trees and plants and birds!--and everything about the farm and the farmhouse itself--it's just the sweetest home in the world! There's not a brick or a stone in it that I would not want to kiss if I had to leave it--but I never felt that way for you! And yet I like you very, very much, Robin!--I wish I could see you married to some nice girl, only I don't know one really nice enough." "Nor do I!" he answered, with a laugh, "except yourself! But never mind, dear!--we won't talk of it any more, just now at any rate. I'm a patient sort of chap. I can wait!" "How long?" she queried, with a wondering glance. "All my life!" he answered, simply. A silence fell between them. Some inward touch of embarrassment troubled the girl, for the colour came and went flatteringly in her soft cheeks and her eyes drooped under his fervent gaze. The glowing light of the sky deepened, and the sun began to sink in a mist of bright orange, which was reflected over all the visible landscape with a warm and vivid glory. That strange sense of beauty and mystery which thrills the air with the approach of evening, made all the simple pastoral scene a dream of incommunicable loveliness,--and the two youthful figures, throned on their high dais of golden-green hay, might have passed for the rustic Adam and Eve of some newly created Eden. They were both very quiet,--with the tense quietness of hearts that are too full for speech. A joy in the present was shadowed with a dim unconscious fear of the future in both their thoughts,--though neither of them would have expressed their feelings in this regard one to the other. A thrush warbled in a hedge close by, and the doves on the farmhouse gables spread their white wings to the late sunlight, cooing amorously. And again the man spoke, with a gentle firmness: "All my life I shall love you, Innocent! Whatever happens, remember that! All my life!" CHAPTER II The swinging open of a great gate at the further end of the field disturbed the momentary silence which followed his words. The returning haymakers appeared on the scene, leading Roger at their head, and Innocent jumped up eagerly, glad of the interruption. "Here comes old Roger!" she cried,--"bless his heart! Now, Robin, you must try to look very stately! Are you going to ride home standing or sitting?" He was visibly annoyed at her light indifference.